Serving Bread

I was sitting in a Bible Study recently and I was struck on a new angle of the story of Jesus’s first miracle that turned water to wine. John 2 that captures the story tells of how Jesus saved a Middle Eastern party from dying when the wine ran out. He converts over 150 gallons of water to wine. Running out of wine would have been shaming to the hosts.

When the emcee tastes the converted wine, he declares to the host (and presumably to the hearing of the wedding guests), “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

What was true then is true today—you drink the better drink before you are too inebriated to enjoy the good drink. Jesus turns that upside down by serving incredible wine to the guests. Whereas the culture would have the wine go from good to bad, Jesus has the wine go from good to great.

When I read this recently, it struck me as a leadership principle. It seems that many people think of their leadership as a “good to mediocre” process. We may put the best foot forward in an interview or in our motivation, but over time, our passions and desires will hit a plateau. We get sloppy in our responsibilities and leadership.

I find this to be true in the ways I may lead meetings. Whereas I may put a lot of energy and thought into running great meetings at the beginning of a season, my focus gets compromised as the year progresses and I find myself doing things at the last minute.

I offered good wine but followed it with the cheap wine. In my particular context, I also see it in the way students lead academic lives. They are committed to their classes at the beginning of the semester, but by the time we hit the 6th week of classes, students drop out of school or stop going to class.

Jesus offers a picture of leadership that stands in contrast. It just gets better with Jesus, and it seems that John 2.10 can serve as a model and vision on how we do leadership. Rather than offer people good stuff and then give them mediocrity, we need to be giving them even better wine as time progresses. I don’t want to just make a first impression, but I want the best for people all the time. Being flashy on the forefront, but pulling back as time progresses is not lasting leadership.

My integrity and leadership rely that I model myself after John 2.10. When people’s lives and time is at stake, cheap leadership is poor leadership.

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